We're Awake Now
by Vongchild
Summary: Post SBS AU. Anakin and Riina in the afterlife. Some fluff. One post, please r&r?


bWe're Awake Now/b

"Hey, are you okay?"

Anakin struggled to speak and sit up. But he couldn't – he couldn't even find his nerves and muscles to act on the want. He could merely look up into an infinite blue yonder and hear the voice of the girl who was familiar but not familiar. A girl that he knew but did not know.

"You don't have to speak," she said. "Just blink twice if you can hear me."

Anakin was surprised to find that his eyelids obeyed him.

"Good," she said. Anakin felt a cool sensation against his forehead, but couldn't protest it. "Your whole body's not here yet," the girl continued, "I don't know how long that'll take. It took me two days to get the whole thing working right. It gets faster every time, though. But then again, you've never died before? Anyways, I got myself together and came to see how you were doing and noticed you were significantly less far along than I." She just kept talking, and Anakin, though he couldn't place her, found it soothing.

"I've lived a thousand times on a thousand worlds in a thousand galaxies," she said, "Or maybe I haven't lived at all. I just know that in the end I end up here. I don't think it's the afterlife, because I always end up down there again. Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe this is what's real."

Anakin tried to protest that she was making his brain ache but couldn't. A sensation like melting icicles ran down his scalp. He twitched a little.

"It's just your hair," the girl said. "And you get used to it after about the fifth time. Though I suppose this is just limbo for you and you're gonna go on and leave me here to get bounced back down. Really, we're all like sleepers in a brief interval from the dream. Oh! And there are your eyes. They're quite handsome."

Anakin's vision cleared a little, He could just see the silhouette of his companion. She looked… wispy. Again, he tried to speak and failed.

"Your problem, in case you're wondering, is that you haven't got your vocal chords back yet. Just leave it for a while. Look, it could be a week before your body is all here. I might get bounced back before then." She sounded sad. Anakin had the irresistible urge to comfort her and found he could not – he didn't have arms yet. There was a burning sensation in his throat, like little knitting needles tugging and weaving the flesh. He gasped and emitted a hoarse sound. Then another and another.

"Slow down," the girl said, "Breathe. Do you remember how to speak?"

Anakin tried, and for a minute or so only managed raw sounds, going through the alphabet phonetically, until, finally, he managed a slurred-sounding "Tahiri" and felt extremely proud of himself, certain that that was a word.

The girl was oddly silent.

"That was her name," she said finally. "I don't remember the names often. But I remember that one."

Anakin felt the flaming knitting needles tugging at his legs. His arms. His abdomen. His groin, pulling him into being.

An eternity passed.

The girl was silent.

His vision cleared.

"Tahiri?" he repeated.

It was Tahiri, but not Tahiri. For as much as this girl in front of him looked like Tahiri, there was something alien hiding behind her green eyes, as alive as the forest moon of Endor, and as wild as the jungles of Yavin 4. They were little emerald fires suspended on her face.

"They called me that. They called me a lot of things. That's not my name. That was never my name. Tahiri is still asleep."

"Then…"

"They called me a name, a beautiful, strong name, but it was not my name. I don't remember my name. Anakin, in a few days I'll be bounced again, and I suppose you'll go on to your reward in the afterlife."

Anakin searched for the name of the girl who was so much like Tahiri but so much unlike Tahiri.

"I followed you. I couldn't stand it anymore."

Testing his new joints, he snapped his fingers. "Riina!"

"That was it," she said passively. "But it really doesn't matter. Like I said, I've lived a thousand times on a thousand worlds. If you can call it living."

Anakin wanted to tell her to stop, that she was depressing him, but couldn't get his mouth around the words.

"But maybe I can get into the afterlife with you," she said, reaching down to him. "Try to stand." Anakin found he could. The new perspective garnered a better view of where he was. There was a white ceiling about four meters above their heads and the floor beneath them was plush white carpet. It stretched on forever in every direction.

They were both wearing thin shifts made of material similar to clouds.

"It looks a little like a lobby," he said, finding the words at last.

"Just a little," Riina replied. "I thought so, too, the first time. Now not so much. Mostly because I never get to wherever this is the lobby of."

Anakin reminded himself that no matter how much this girl looked or acted like Tahiri, she wasn't Tahiri.

"I'm not a parasite, if that's what you're thinking," she said idly. "I'm just always in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I guess I'm a little recyclable."

"What do you mean?"

"You've only lived once. You had your own body. I keep getting bounced into bodies that people already have. Every time. It's like I've never lived at all. The force won't allow it. I have to start over."

"Oh," Anakin said. "I suppose that –"

"You don't suppose anything. You haven't lived enough," she hissed tearfully. "You haven't seen what I've seen. What's two weeks of suffering out of a life of posh happiness? It's nothing when you've lived a thousand lifetimes, each of them as a tortured woman's psyche. You lived well. You loved. You were loved. Me? I've never been anything. I've been a problem. I've been called a parasite, a figment, a hallucination. Something to go away with therapy. Something to call into existence when you don't want to live anymore: When you want to be an automaton. People say I'm not real. But I am real. I'm just as real as anyone you've ever met. I have as much a right to exist as anyone else. But to exist as I do - It's not living, but it is living. And I'm tired of living." She sat down and tucked her knees up against her chest.

"Soon I'll have to go back down, and you'll join the force," she hissed. "Anakin, please. Take me with you."

He helped her up.

She was like Tahiri, he thought. And she was very easily pitied. So tragic, really.

Nothing is truly evil, he remembered. Just misunderstood.

Wrapping his arms around her shaking shoulders, he whispered. "Shhhh…. Don't cry. It's over now. It was a bad dream. You're awake now. Nothing will hurt you. Shhhh… I've got you."

"You can rest."

Fin.


End file.
